Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First I want to offer my condolences from the Sahtu region to the young man’s family up in Inuvik. We certainly offer our prayers to that family. Also to another resident of the Sahtu that passed away last night, Mark Collier from Norman Wells. We offer our condolences to the whole family in Norman Wells.
I talked with the elders a couple of days ago. I want to thank my colleagues for allowing me to take a couple of days off to attend the funeral in Fort Good Hope. The elders talked to me and said we need to take some time to help one another. That’s the way of our culture. Our culture says to support the family.
I want to thank the people also on behalf of the Grandjambe family, the people of Inuvik who helped donate a lot of good food to the community of Fort Good Hope. I just want to do this before I start my Member’s statement.
People in Fort Good Hope had approached me while I was there and they’ve been telling me that the health centre up there is quite busy and sometimes when they go there, the people are being turned away. They are being asked not to come back, or they’re being given aspirins or pills and not really getting checked out. Even one elderly lady in Good Hope, I asked how she was and she said, my leg is sore and I keep going to the health centre but they keep sending me away. Now I don’t want to go back to the health centre anymore because I don’t like to hear that word no.
We know that our nurses are working extra hard, but we also know that they’re the only health care centre in our community and they should be taking an extra step to check them out and make sure they’re okay, rather than give them pills or any type of medication and send them away. Our doctors don’t come regularly. We don’t have the type of service that we have in the larger centres where we take it for granted that our doctors are here.
In the small communities they want to know if they can get the same type of health care and have our people there, especially the elderly people, not be turned away. Have the nurse check them over, look through the medical charts, make sure they are okay and if they have to go to a larger centre, send them out. A lot of our elderly people are saying that the health service is not up to par and they want me to ask the Minister if this could be changed.
During my oral questions I will be asking the Minister of Health questions on these health issues.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
